Generalized Polya urns via stochastic approximation

We collect, survey and develop methods of (one-dimensional) stochastic approximation in a framework that seems suitable to handle fairly broad generalizations of Polya urns. To show the applicability of the results we determine the limiting fraction of balls in an urn with balls of two colors. We consider two models generalizing the Polya urn, in the first one ball is drawn and replaced with balls of (possibly) both colors according to which color was drawn. In the second, two balls are drawn simultaneously and replaced along with balls of (possibly) both colors according to what combination of colors were drawn.Comment: Licentiate thesis, 40 pages, 1 figur

Haminan satama-alueen turvallisuuskulttuurin kehittäminen

Tämän opinnäytetyön aiheena oli tarkastella Haminan satama-alueen turvallisuuskulttuuria kokonaisuutena. Lisäksi aiheena oli selvittää eri toimijoiden rooleja sataman turvallisuudessa. Opinnäytetyö on toiminnallinen opinnäytetyö. Toiminnallinen osuus sisältää Haminan satama-alueen pelastussuunnitelman, joka toimii perustana laaditulle raporttiosuudelle. Pelastussuunnitelmaa ei ole liitetty tähän opinnäytetyöhön suoraan, sillä se sisältäisi liian paljon yksityiskohtaista tietoa sataman toiminnoista. Pelastussuunnitelma ei ole kuitenkaan salassa pidettävä ja joitakin osia suunnitelmasta on käsitelty suoraan tässäkin työssä. Tässä opinnäytetyössä satama-alueen turvallisuuskulttuuria ja sen nykytilaa on selvitetty eri keinoin. Yksi tässä työssä käytetty keino on pelastussuunnitelmassakin käytetty satama-alueen riskienselvitys ja sen pohjalta tehdyt johtopäätökset. Opinnäytetyössä on myös selvitetty sataman turvallisuuskulttuuriin osallisena olevien eri toimijoiden rooleja. Roolit on selvitetty seuraavien toimijoiden osalta; HaminaKotka Satama Oy, Kymenlaakson pelastuslaitos sekä Turvallisuus- ja kemikaalivirasto Tukes. Opinnäytetyön lopussa on pohdittu muutamia kehitysideoita sataman turvallisuuskulttuurin parantamiseksi ja mainittu muutamia konkreettisia opinnäytetyöaiheita tulevaisuuteen. Opinnäytetyön johtopäätöksenä voidaan todeta, että Haminan satama-alueen turvallisuuskulttuuri on erittäin hyvällä tasolla.The aim of this final project was to study the safety culture in the Hamina port area which is a part of a bigger organisation called Port of HaminaKotka. The aim was also to study the roles of different safety operators working with port safety. This final project is a functional study in which the safety and security plan of the Hamina port area was created. The safety culture of Hamina port area has been studied in different ways. The present level of the safety culture was analyzed. The first step of evaluating the safety culture was to make a risk analysis of the whole port area. Another method used evaluating the safety culture was the audition of the level of independent preparedness. Also, the roles and the tasks of different safety operators was studied. The operators that was discussed are the port itself, Kymenlaakso Department of Emergency Services and the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes). The conclusions are that the safety in Hamina port area is on a very good level. The final project also includes some proposals for development and further study concerining the safety culture in Hamina Port area

Kauppakeskuksen verkkosivusto osana kauppakeskuksen palvelukokonaisuutta ja asiakkaan arvonluontiprosessia : esimerkkitapauksena kauppakeskus Mylly

Siirretty Doriast

”Exit, that means out” : young children’s use of multiliterary resources and strategies in text-dialogues

This thesis examined the strategies in multiliteracy used by children in their interpretation of multimodal texts through peer dialogue. The thesis builds upon a sociocultural approach to meaning-making in interaction. According to new, broader perspectives on literacy, our so-cially and culturally shaped messages take ever more complex forms, which means that we also require mastery of complex literary skills in our meaning-making. This places new de-mands on pedagogical practices and on research to be considered. The development of multiliteracy skills in children is one of the objectives included in the Finnish national curricu-lum, which means that more knowledge of how multiliteracy can be enhanced in different contexts is needed. This study is influenced by theories within the research on multiliteracy as well as on previous research on emergent literacy among young children. The goal is to demonstrate emergent multiliterate processes of meaning-making expressed by young chil-dren in their interpretation of text through peer dialogue. The results may have an impact on the planning of pedagogical practices and materials used for the promotion of equal opportu-nities among children in the development of multiliteracy. The research was conducted with qualitative, unstructured, interviews in the form of text-dialogues. The participants were 40 children from a Finnish-speaking preschool. The children were 3 to 6 years old at the time. The text-dialogues that were filmed, showed the children working in pairs with the guidance of an adult interviewer, interpreting infographic posters. The dialogues were analysed with a qualitative thematic analysis and categories for the analysis were formed according to previous research on multiliteracy. The multimodality of the meaning-making expressed by the children was considered in the analysis, which gave a more nuanced picture of their processes. The results presented in the thesis suggest one way of relating emergent literary processes of young children with concepts of multiliteracy, as well as tools for closer examination of different forms of meaning making that young children express when interpreting multimodal and informative texts. The children in the study used complex multiliterate resources and strategies in their text-dialogues, which supports earlier theories of emergent readers as capable interpreters of varying text-sources. The meaning-making of the children was dynamic and transformative. The infographic posters used in the text-dialogues created a multiplicity of combinations of textual modalities, which enabled the children to assess the texts from many different perspectives.I den här avhandlingen granskades multilitterära strategier och resurser som små barn uttryckte i textdialoger, då de tolkade infografiska affischer med multimodalt innehåll. Avhandlingen grundar sig i ett sociokulturellt förhållningssätt till meningsskapande i interaktion. Enligt nya vidgade syner på litteracitet tar socialt och kulturellt skapade meddelanden allt mångsidigare former i dagens samhälle, vilket gör att mänskor behöver behärska mångsidiga litterära förmågor i sitt meningsskapande. Detta ställer nya krav på pedagogiska praktiker och forskning att beakta. Multilitteracitet som begrepp och pedagogisk målsättning förekommer i de finländska läroplanerna, och därför behövs definitioner på vad multilitteracitet innebär i olika pedagogiska sammanhang och lärandesituationer. Avhandlingen utgår ifrån teorier inom multilitteracitetspedagogik, samt i tidigare forskning kring små barns framväxande litteracitet, och har som målsättning att åskådliggöra framväxande multilitterära processer små barn ger uttryck för i textdialoger. Detta kan ha betydelse för planering av pedagogiska praktiker och utveckling av pedagogiskt material, som främjar små barns jämlika möjligheter till att utveckla sin multilitteracitet. I studiens textdialoger, som utfördes med ett ostrukturerat intervjuformat, deltog 40-stycken 3 ̶ 6-åriga barn från ett finskspråkigt daghem. Med stöd av en vuxen intervjuare, tolkade barnen parvis infografiska affischer med mångsidigt text- och bildinnehåll. Textdialogerna som videofilmades ägde rum i daghemmets utrymmen, som ett tillägg till de normala daghemsrutinerna. Dialogerna analyserades med en kvalitativ tematisk analys. Analyskategorierna formades utgående från tidigare forskning och teorier om multilitterära tolkningsprocesser. I analysen beaktades barnens meningsskapande med hänsyn till deras mångsidiga sätt att uttrycka sig med gester, miner, läten och tal. Denna fokus på multimodalt uttryck gav en rikare uppfattning om barnens tolkningsprocesser i interaktionen. Avhandlingens resultat ger förslag på hur små barns framväxande texttolkningar kan relateras till begrepp inom multilitteracitetsdiskursen, samt verktyg för att mer ingående granska och benämna olika former av meningsskapande som barn uttrycker, då de tolkar multimodala och informativa textinnehåll. Enligt studiens resultat använde barnen mångsidiga multilitterära strategier och deras tolkningsprocesser visade sig vara dynamiska och transformativa, då barnen delade av sina resurser med varandra och tillsammans skapade betydelser i dialogerna. Resultaten stöder således tidigare uppfattningar om små barn som kompetenta tolkare av litterära sammanhang. Affischerna som valdes till studien skapade en bra helhet i dialogerna med sitt mångsidiga bild- och symbolinnehåll, då barnen både kunde söka logiska textuella sammanhang inom affischerna, reflektera över affischernas kulturella bundenheter, samt blev inspirerade att expandera utöver affischernas gränser. Kombinationen av bilder, symboler och skriven text gjorde att barnen kunde fokusera på de modaliteter som de upplevde som bekanta och hade resurser att tolka. Studiens resultat indikerar med andra ord att tolkning av texter med multimodalt innehåll väl kan stöda utvecklingen av små barns multilitteracitet i enlighet med målsättningarna i de finländska läroplanerna

Children’s Augmented Storying in, with and for Nature

Drawing on a relational ontology and scholarship of new literacies, we investigate the materiality and performativity of children’s augmented storying in nature. Our study is situated in a Finnish primary school in which a novel, augmented reality application (MyAR Julle) was utilized as a digital storytelling tool for children (n = 62, aged 7–9), allowing them to explore, interact, and imagine in nature and to create/share their stories. The data corpus consists of their narrations of their augmented stories in nature, their augmented story artefacts, and video/observational data from their construction of such stories in nature. Narrative analysis reveals how the children’s augmented storying in nature was performed through playful, affective, and sensuous, identity, cultural, and critical literacies, which were imaginatively constructed into being at the nexus of their sensed reality and fantasy. These literacies make visible human–material–spatial–temporal assemblages during which the children played with/through the augmented character Julle, felt and sensed with/through Julle, and re-storied their experiences, cultural knowledge, and identities with/through Julle. They also engaged in critical thinking with/through Julle. The study contributes to knowledge on the meaning of materiality in children’s storying in, with, and for nature and the educational possibilities of augmented storying for children’s (eco)literacies

'I could smell the sound of winter' : Children's aesthetic experiences in their local forest through digital storying

Peer reviewe

Children’s emotional experiences in and about nature across temporal–spatial entanglements during digital storying

In this study, we investigate how digital storying creates opportunities for children to attend to their emotional experiences in and about nature. Following relational ontology and socio-cultural theorising, we focus our analysis on the temporal–spatial entanglements of children's emotional experiences. Our inquiry draws on a case study of two children at a Finnish primary school. Liam and Vera engaged in digital storying in their local forest using an augmented storycrafting app, MyAR Julle. The data were collected during two storying workshops by means of observational field notes, video recordings, interviews with the children and digital artefacts. The results illustrate how engaging in the narrative plot of a fictitious augmented character invited the children to create necessary open-endedness in the activity which further stimulated their storying. The children's experiences were imbued with emotions and distributed across human and non-human actors. The children's digital storying not only communicated their personal emotional experiences in local surroundings, but was also grounded in broader societal narratives, such as climate change and forest conservation, with considerations of the future of the planet. The results suggest how digital storying offers a pedagogical method for early environmental education that builds on children's emotional experiences.Peer reviewe